Metropolitan Police Service - Winner
The Metropolitan Police Traffic Department has developed a road safety scheme called “Exchanging Places”, which primarily focuses on the interaction between cyclists and Heavy Goods Vehicles on the Capital’s roads. The project is a response to a rise in the number of fatal collisions between predominately left-turning HGVs and cyclists. A series of events ran where cyclists gained first-hand experience of the limited visibility from within the driver’s cab of an HGV. The success of the events prompted the organisation of more, larger events, interactive PowerPoint presentations, a popular video on YouTube and more. The aspiration of “Exchanging Places” is to become the principal method of educating cyclists.
City of London
The City of London launched a free competition called ‘All Change, Please’, which encourages people across London to reduce their carbon footprint. The online competition ran for five days and aimed to engage and educate people about sustainability and climate change. Each day the player logged into the website www.allchangeplease.com, ticked which sustainable action item they did that day and answered a crossword puzzle. The goal was to emphasize the power of the individual and to demonstrate that small changes by lots of individuals can add up to a big difference.
Team London Bridge/Better Bankside/SBEG
Team London Bridge, Better Bankside and South Bank Employers’ Group joined up to run the InfoBike programme. For its duration, three InfoBikes patrolled the Thames riverfront. The InfoBikes themselves are three-wheeled giant tricycles with large storage units on the back containing maps and literature. Relying on cycle power, each was manned by two trained Information Officers who promoted walking routes and directed around people along the Thames Path riverwalks and Jubilee Walkway. Their knowledge of public transport also helped visitors find their way around London without using polluting taxis. This initiative provided a very sustainable, smart approach to marketing the area as a destination and promoting local businesses.
Living Streets
National charity Living Streets run the Walking Works Campaign to highlight the role that walking can play in bringing some much-needed activity into our daily lives. Walk to Work Week is a national event aimed at encouraging 21 to 40-year-old office-based workers to try to get out on foot during their working week. This innovative and unique event has inspired thousands of people to walk more, as well as raise their awareness of walking as a simple way of building in active travel to their daily routines. The event was delivered through a Walk to Work Week online tool where participants could upload details of their walking activities and monitor their achievements over the course of the Week. The project met its targets of achieving 10,000 online registrations for the event and getting 20 London boroughs involved.
